I'm on my third year of trying to discouver the HOW to help her learn. How is it she will learn X? I only ask when she isn't learning.

I currently spend about 2 hours a day with my daughter. In the last month she has grown emensely, and is working much more independently. I keep interacting with her, because I know she likes this. I don't want to reward her progress with isolation. I'm trying to balance the "you can do it yourself now" with the "I'm here to help and direct".

I've tried to build on the linkage between the conscious and non-conscious mind.

Recently I've shifted from just working on the mechanics of the problem (reading decoding skills, or mathematical steps) to do it and try. See how fast you can do it and don't worry about mistakes.

Here is this morning's wow. She is currently learning the multiplication tables. She has better than a 90% correct answer rate, but I can see she is working the answers out. I've tried the relax and don't read, don't solve just look at the flash cards (a couple of days ago), while I flash them as fast as I can (the side with the answers to). The the next day I watch her doing her multiplication and not real difference. This morning. I said "I want to try something. I want you to tell me the answer as fast as you can." I'd orally give her the question, then count to three then show the answer. The first few she just froze. Then she seemed to get frustrated. I said "It's okay, I just want to see what happens. I don't expect you to get the answer. Just say the first number that comes into your head." I did a few more and counted to five, this time. She started to get some answers out. The were still wrong, but they were getting close to the correct answer. I gave her some positive feed back. More importantly I could tell she was seeing progress and was patting herself on the back. After the little wow that was great session we did some more. She then started getting the answer correct, within the five seconds. She then was getting them in 3 seconds and then most of them within 1 second. She was just bubbling with self pride and excitement.

I skipped the rest of the homework (it was extra development stuff). I didn't keep increasing the difficulty until she failed. This whole experience was after doing some other homework. The multiplication experience was about 10 minutes in total time. It surprised me and her.


I believe that my daughter's problems stem from a fear to making mistakes. In the last few months I've been trying to work on the idea that it's okay. I've tried many different approaches to convey, or hide the idea with an activity. I've seem much better progress with this than just working on the mechanics. These are my efforts to get past her limiting conscious filters.

We still review the mechanics of the learning, since you need the building blocks to build you tower of knowledge and capabilities. However, working on achieving success of by-passing the limiting conscious beliefs is my current goal. I've also worked on her noticing her personal state and using the information it gives you to better direct your efforts. If you are frustrated, concentrating harder and putting more pressure to achieve is not the best way to achieve your goal (I don't talk like that to her). Take a few seconds to relax, smile / be happy, focus, and be curious / interested.


Sorry, I had to share. These WOW are as much a thrill for me as for her.


You are perfection.
Iam2